Sunshine Week Promotes Open Gov't for La Mesa Public Agencies

As La Mesa Patch is in the midst of Sunshine Week 2012—a national recognition of freedom of information and efforts to promote the public’s right to know—we’ve taken a look at how well local public bodies promote openness.

First, a little background on Sunshine Week, launched in 2005 by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. 

Sunshine Week is a national initiative to promote a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and others interested in the public’s right to know. 

The following is a review of how well La Mesa's agencies make information available to the public.

La Mesa City Council – Agendas posted online for download, dating back to May 2009. Additionally, minutes of those meetings date back to March 2009, however, as of yet, there are no posted minutes for meetings in 2012.

The several appointed panels in La Mesa have an uneven record of posting agendas and minutes.

The Community Services Commission has both agendas and minutes available, but the most recent minutes are from Jan. 2012.

The Planning Commission has both agendas and minutes available, but the most recent minutes are from Jan. 2012.

The Traffic Commission and the Environmental Sustainability Commission have both agendas and minutes available, but the most updated minutes from each are from September and November 2011, respectively.

The Historic Preservation Commission has both agendas and minutes, but none from 2012. The Building Codes Review Board has only one available agenda (dated Oct. 2010), but has agendas from January 2012. Similarly, the Commission on Aging doesn't have any agendas or minutes for 2012.

The Design Review Board, the Human Relations Advisory Commission, the La Mesa Community Parking Commission, and the Youth Advisory Commission all have agendas and minutes available, but none updated for March 2012.

Two La Mesa boards show no online agendas or minutes: the Loan Committee for Real Estate Rehabilitation, and the Personnel Appeals Board.

Elsewhere, the Grossmont Healthcare District posts board meeting minutes and agendas from late 2008 to the present.

Another La Mesa-based district—Helix Water District—has posted “board packages” back only to April 2011, with a note on the website advising: “For packages previous to those listed below, contact Board Secretary Donna Bartlett-May at 619-667-6232 or Donna.BartlettMay@helixwater.org.”

Minutes from past Helix Water District board meetings also go back only thru March 2011.

Local school boards have an uneven record on posting board agendas and minutes.

The Grossmont Union High School District agenda archive goes back several years and boasts 106 files, but many meetings are missing since 2006. The high school board’s 79 minutes go back to January 2006.

The La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, based on Date Avenue near City Hall, has an easier-to-navigate records site. Its website archives board minutes and agendas on a single page—going back to January 2005.

The local champion of open board records continues to be the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District. Its website has a single page that archives  agendas and minutes dating to January 1999. But four meetings are missing online minutes—from June 8, 1999; Nov. 5, 2001; Nov. 7, 2001; and Nov. 21, 2005.

“The four meetings that weren’t online were all entirely closed-session meetings,” Anne Krueger, a district spokeswoman told La Mesa Patch last year. “I’m told that in the past they didn’t have minutes to those minutes, so that’s why they weren’t online.”

At La Mesa Patch, we aim to engage our communities in conversation about the importance of the public’s right to know and educate them about local and state freedom of information and so-called sunshine laws and the public records that are available, how to get, use and decipher them, and explain how and why journalists utilize them to further our core mission of covering and informing our communities well.

This year Sunshine Week is co-sponsored by ASNE and the Reporters Committee For Freedom of the Press and many other media industry partners, including Patch. The goal is to promote a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and others interested in government transparency. The week is funded by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation of Miami, along with the ASNE Foundation, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and others. 

Sunshine Week began on Monday and runs through Saturday. A host of resources on open government has been assembled by the Sunshine Week team at sunshineweek.org/ReadingRoom.aspx.